Grey
by wolfraven80
Summary: SethxEirika AU World War I. It's been over a year since Imperial Grado invaded Renais and the soldiers of Frelia and Renais dug in. Now, among the muddy trenches, Major Seth finds himself face to face with someone he had never expected to see there.
1. Grey

**Grey**

The world was grey. All other colour had been drained out of it. The sky, the faces of the men, smudged with sweat and mud, even the soil's once fertile brown, now faded to an ashen hue. Even blood was soon turned to a muddy brown and then faded to grey in this place.

Leaning back against the clay and sodden sandbags of the trench's wall, Major Seth pulled a notebook from his breast pocket. After a moment's struggle, his cold-numbed fingers managed to extract the stub of a pencil and he jotted down a few lines. Metre and rhyme were still used among fashionable circles who wanted ordered verses for their ordered world. Here everything was broken. Why should poems be exempt?

He cursed as a raindrop tumbled from the sky and left a splotch on the page. The notebook was returned to his pocket moments before the downpour began.

"Aww hell," muttered the nearby sentry, Private Colm, his rifle leaning against the trench wall.

Grey light darkened into grey-black as dusk settled and Private Neimi finally lowered her rifle and, with characteristic gracelessness, slid down from her perch, landing on the muddy duckboards with a spatter. She cast her feet a forlorn glance before making her way to the sheltered dugout. Seth almost smiled. For all her seeming clumsiness, she was the finest sniper in his company – the finest in any company he'd commanded in fact.

Raindrops trickled down as Seth adjusted his steel helmet and the strap of the rifle slung over his back. He had already chosen the members of the wiring party. They were due to assemble at dusk and head out to repair the barbed wire entanglements in the sea of mud beyond the trench. Last night a party of Imperial Grado soldiers had been caught cutting through – in preparation for a raid no doubt – and the damage had to be repaired.

Captain Garcia was the first to arrive, limping slightly. He shrugged when he noted Seth's gaze, directed towards his left leg. "Footrot starting up, I think," he said with a grimace. "Weren't we supposed to be relieved already, Major?"

"Yes." Seth's brow was furrowed. "Yesterday." Garcia harrumphed. "Have Father Moulder look at your feet as soon as you get back."

"Yes, sir. Assuming they're still attached."

"Naturally."

This was as close to humour as they seemed to come anymore and only an old soldier like Garcia would even attempt it with him, Seth knew. At forty, Garcia was considered a grizzled old veteran by any accounts. Seth himself, only in his mid twenties, was one of the older men in the company.

Trickling down over the lip of the trench and the sodden sandbags against its wall, the rain soon formed rivulets through the rungs of the duckboard ne the floor of the trench. If the downpour continued it would turn into a muddy stream around their boots, soaking their feet with cold. Seth could hardly fathom anymore a time when he had enjoyed the sound of running water.

The other members of the wire team had assembled and were preforming their preparatory equipment check, when someone stumbled through the trench, calling his name.

"Major Seth, they just sent a unit up from the support line," said the private.

Seth nodded. "Captain Garcia, proceed as discussed."

"Yes, Major."

And with that he turned on his heel and sloshed towards the communication trench that connected them here, on the front line, with the support trench located some hundred yards behind them, and another hundred in front of the reserve trench.

What he found when he arrived there, was not to his liking. "What's this? We were expecting to be relieved." A dozen soldiers stood in line, their wet uniforms clinging to their shivering bodies. A dozen was not enough relieve his company.

"Sorry, Major. These are just some extras for your company to replace the wounded," announced a man with Captain's stripes on his collar.

"And when can we be expected to be relieved, Captain..."

"Captain Gilliam, Sir. And I was told not for five more days."

Seth ground his teeth. Two weeks they'd been rotting in the frontline trench, taking sniper fire by day and exchanging raids by night. They were supposed to be relieved. Any more of this and every man and woman in his company would be lamed by footrot without the enemy having to lift a finger.

"Run through the ranks, Captain Gilliam," Seth said finally.

Gilliam straightened and began to recite the names of his group, each standing at attention even as they shivered. Seth listened to the litany of privates, his eyes flitting over each pale face. They were all blank to him, all the same soldiers in their dull uniforms, perhaps the same ones who had died on the field, in the no-man's-land between the trenches, risen up and returned for another tour.

"And Lieutenant Erina." He hoped she was not as green as the last new lieutenant they'd sent up; that one had lasted all of three days. In the dark, beneath the brims of their helmets, they were all the same, and yet something in her features arrested his attention. For a moment he found himself remembering home as it had once been, the green fields of Renais in spring, the scent of lilacs... His eyes focussed on the lieutenant's face and in an instant nostalgia was swept away by horror.

"No," he croaked. "No, it can't be..." He reached out to grab her by the chin and tilt her face up for inspection. Seth found himself staring into an all-too familiar pair of blue eyes. "You didn't..."

"Major?" the lieutenant said, her voice quavering.

And it was certainly her voice. He had known her since she'd been a child; how could he not recognise her? How could she have ever thought he would not recognise her?

In another time he would have groaned, dealt with the situation calmly, with the caution and diplomacy required of such matters, but that stolid, patient man had died in the trenches. He had little time to waste on niceties now. He spun to face Captain Gillian. "Do you have any notion of how serious this is?"

"Sir?"

"You," Seth said, addressing the privates. "Head on in. We'll get you sorted out later." He waited for them to leave and then turned to the Captain. "This is no lieutenant. This is Princess Eirika of Renais."

Captain Gilliam turned to stare at the woman in question. "Are you... certain, Major?"

Seth glowered in her direction. "Quite." How could she have done this? All this while he'd thought her safe in Frelia's walled capital. It was bad enough that Prince Ephraim was serving on the front lines. To have both Renais' heirs in such danger was utter recklessness. "This is all a misunderstanding, Major," the lieutenant stammered.

Yet she could not meet his eyes when he stared at her. His gaze softened as she looked away and, for a moment, he took in the sight of her, dressed head to toe in the dirt coloured uniform of all the Frelian troops, her long hair cut down to nothing, her hands gripping a rifle. It saddened him to think of the cheerful girl she'd been before the war, hands now wrapped around the butt of a rifle.

"I'll call Second Lieutenant Franz, then," Seth announced. "He knows the princess by sight."

She hung her head. "No, there's no need. You're right, Seth, it's me."

The startled expressions on Gilliam's face would have been comical under different circumstances. Seth suppressed a groan. "Eirika, how could you..." He shook his head and turned his attention back to Gilliam. "Captain, please see to the men you brought in. After that I'll need you to escort the princess back to the rear line."

"No! Seth, you can't–"

"We will have words in private, milady," he rounded on her.

Gilliam gave a curt nodded and hurried off to the relief troops. Seth waited for him to be well away before snagging Eirika by the arm and pulling her along some distance away from the narrow communication trench.

"Eirika, this is folly, absolute folly!"

Her eyes came to rest on the hand still gripping her arm. He let go and, taking a step back, tried to remember the man he'd been before the war, to find the calm reserve that had alway tempered his actions in those days.

"I'd hoped to speak with you privately, Seth, when I arrived. Taking on the guise of a Frelian soldier was the only way I could managed to get myself here."

"You _should not_ be here."

"I–"

A flare from the Grado trenches shot into the sky, its light blinding to his night vision. It dropped onto the earth just beyond the back lip of the trench where it lay hissing and fizzing, casting stones and sandbags into sharp relief. Eirika started, the rifle in her hands raised.

"Don't," he said. "They send those to spot men on the lip of the trench or outside of it, but if you don't move, they won't see you."

She nodded, slowly lowering her rifle.

Seth wiggled toes already wet and numb with cold. Gods forbid Renais have a dry autumn. Though to call this muddy season autumn, a word that made him think of the golden hues of foliage before the frosts came, of fields ready for harvest, was a travesty. Renais no longer knew colour or bounty. The land was nothing but snaking trenches and shelled ruins surrounded by endless tracts of broken earth.

He was waiting for the sound of gunfire but nothing came. "Why did you come?" he asked finally.

"I need your help. It's Ephraim. His company has gone missing near Renval. You know the place. You visited there before the war."

"Couldn't you have sent a telegram?" There was more bite to the remark than he'd intended. She looked hurt. It had been some while since they'd last spoken in person. He'd left for the front only weeks after he'd delivered her to Frelia. For all the good that had done!

"No. I had to speak to you in person."

"You could've had me summoned to Frelia."

"I'd have had to explain myself to Innes."

He huffed. Prince Innes, the great tactician, the would-be saviour of Magvel. Seth would have liked to have seen the prince sully his pretty clothes down here with the rest of them for once. "Return to Frelia, Lady Eirika. And tell Prince Innes that we need more heavy guns whether or not it's 'sporting'. The Grado troops have five per battalion to our two."

Eirika drew herself up, shoulders squared, jaw set. Something inside him thawed. He knew that look. He knew it so well. She had had that same air when she'd insisted Ephraim take her to the shooting ranges and teach her to use a hunting rifle and then a pistol and then a short knife. She had said that even a princess should know how to defend herself. "I won't go. You can send me away, but I'll escape and return here."

"That would be exceedingly dangerous."

"Then you'd best let me have my say here and now."

Another flare lit up the trench nearby. Her hands tightened around her rifle but she held steady this time. Seth heaved a sigh and nodded, the movement sending rain dribbling down from his helmet in rivulets. He stuffed his hands under his armpits to try to warm them and let her speak.

"I had word from Ephraim some weeks ago. He said he'd learned of some terrible new weapon being created by the imperial army." For a moment she closed her eyes. "And he said... he said that Lyon was at the head of their research division."

"What sort of weapon?"

"I don't know. Ephraim couldn't say more in his letter, only that he was pursuing the information and that the project was called the Dark Stone. I tried to speak to Innes and King Hayden about it, but they were only interested in defending the Frelian front and brokering agreements with Carcino."

"Even so, you shouldn't have come here." He held her by the shoulders and looked past the brim of her steel helmet to the pale face beneath. "With Ephraim on the field _you_ are the head of state."

"Of what state? There will be nothing left of Renais if Emperor Vigrade isn't defeated."

The attack had caught them off guard for Imperial Grado and its emperor had long been friends of Renais. But Grado's armies had marched to the border and demanded the surrender of the fortresses there. The siege had lasted eleven days until the heavy artillery had arrived and turned the forts to little more than rubble. Renais had built no guns of such calibre, nor would they ever have thought to point them in Grado's direction.

"There will be no chance for restoration if you don't survive," Seth said.

"From what I learned from Ephraim, if Grado uses this Dark Stone, none of us will survive."

For a moment neither spoke. As another flare brightened the night, they stood regarding each other in its glare. "You look different," she said. "Thinner."

"You cut your hair," he returned. A wistful smile touched her lips and then vanished.

"Lice," she said. "I heard there were lice."

He grimaced. "Often."

"You shouldn't have left so suddenly."

He looked away. "You shouldn't be here."

"Neither should you!" she shot back. "You're a general, Seth. Who ever heard of a general having himself demoted just so he could come to the front?"

"At least here I'm of use!" He tried to calm himself, to keep his voice steady, but it was as much a losing battle as any they fought out here in the gutted remains of their homeland. "Prince Innes would take no counsel from me. He wouldn't listen to a word. He's determined to make this war his own and direct the fighting as he sees fit." He balled his chilled hands into fists. "Freeing Renais is not in his plans. All he cares for is keeping Grado from encroaching into Frelian lands and he's willing to waste the lives of Renais soldiers to do so."

"You could have spoken to me about it. Could've–"

The staccato rhythm of gunfire tore into his attention. Pulse thrumming, he tried to hear over his heartbeat, to gauge how close they were. There were shouts, sharp and quick. The sentry called them to arms.

"Dammit," Seth spat, "not now."

Soldiers, men and women all the same in the khaki uniforms, sprang from their positions, dashed to the lip of the trench, rifles in hand, loaded, ready, barrels pointing out to the monstrous darkness.

"A raid," he said. He looked her square in the eye. "Keep your head down. Stay close to me."

She only nodded. The gunfire was closer.

He reached for the rifle on his back and moved forward. Raids were meant to be silent, stealthy affairs, but the wire team must have managed to spot the raiding party and fired the first shots.

Soldiers quickly formed lines, standing on the fire step so that they could shoot over the lip of the trench, sending tiny sparks into the night as they fired. Just ahead, a man shuddered and fell backwards and then another in quick succession. Rifle raised, finger on the trigger, Seth dashed forward as a figure came rolling over the the parapet into the trench. The crest on his helmet gave him away as an Imperial Grado soldier. Seth pulled the trigger. The Imperial soldier fell. Two more came over the trench's lip and were mowed down.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Eirika take aim and fire.

Another figure dove into the trench, just before a blast shook the earth, sending debris flying in Seth's direction. He threw his arms over his face as earth and stone pattered against his helmet, cracked against his chin. When he looked again, an Imperial was on his feet and lunging at him with a short knife. Too close to shoot, Seth lashed out with the butt of his rifle. It caught the Imperial in the head with a satisfying crack.

Bursts of gunfire continued on the ground above, but there was skirmishing in the trench, men wrestling in the near-dark, cursing, screaming. They could not use their rifles at such close range and had to rely on bayonets or small arms. Though normally he would have rushed forward, he stopped to look frantically for the princess. In the dark, every soldier looked alike.

The earth shuddered from the force of another blast nearby and several flashes nearly blinded him, but he stumbled forward over the corpses in the trench. A few paces away, a slim figure with a crested helmet pulled a pistol and fired at the man in front of her at point blank range, making a ruin of his chest. Seth reached for the knife at his belt and loosed it before the Imperial had time to turn around. It struck home and the Imperial collapsed, the blade lodged to the hilt in her chest.

Eirika. Where was Eirika?

Everywhere were soldiers in muddy uniforms and steel helmets, each much like the other. He spotted a figure with thin shoulders stumbling over a corpse nearby. Eirika. Relief flooded through him when she righted herself and he saw her face. He snagged her arm. "Get back to the reserve trench," he yelled, trying to be heard over the sounds of gunfire and explosions.

"What?" she shouted.

"The reserve trench! Go back!"

"Major Seth!" He spun at the sound of his name only to find Captain Garcia, blood dribbling down the side of his face. "Captain?"

"We've got three men in the east crater. All injured."

Seth swore. "I'll head out there. I'll need two men with me and a rope."

As he made his way eastward the clicking bolts of rifles continued unabated, soldiers lined up on the fire step, shooting at enemies they could hardly see. The rate of fire seemed to slow, however, as he waited for Garcia to return with the rope. He pulled Private Colm and a private whose named escaped him from the line, both young, stout lads. Colm was smaller than some of others, but he was nimble and would be of help navigating the muddy slope of the crater.

Once the soldiers on the eastern stretch were aware of the plan, Seth was ready to make the rescue attempt. Taking a deep breath, he hoisted himself over the parapet and began the belly crawl through the mud. He moved carefully through the wire entanglements and then slunk forward toward the crater. What had once been a shallow gully had been turned into a deep crater by shelling earlier in the season. At the bottom of it, some twenty feet down in the mud, were the remains of the wire team.

Slithering through the bullet-churned mud, Seth made his way to the edge of the crater and paused there. He signalled to the private who followed after him to anchor the rope there. He motioned for Colm to follow him and they slid down into the crater. Seth's boots splashed in the mire at the bottom. He made a quick inspection of his men. One had a broken arm, another had had his foot more or less shot off, and a third, a certain Corporal Phillips, had a chest wound. His breathing had a wet, sucking sound to it.

They tied the rope beneath the first soldier's armpits and Seth scrambled back up the incline to help the private pull up the injured man. The rope rubbed his palms raw and for a moment Seth was grateful for the rain as it cooled the heat of his hands. Colm assisted the injured man and they were able to get him up on level ground. They repeated the process for the second wounded soldier.

"Get them back to the trench and send someone else to help with Phillips."

The sound of sporadic gunfire ticked away the minutes as he waited on the crater's slope. Finally he saw a pair of figures in the mud slithering from the direction of his trench. Just as they drew within a few feet, the staccato call of a machine gun from the Imperial trench cut through the night air. A flare lit up the night and he froze mid-breath, heart hammering as if to match the rhythm of the guns.

Seth jerked back as he felt something slam into his leg. Cursing, he stumbled towards the incline. An explosion to his left. Another, somewhere behind him.

He didn't hear the blast the hit him, only felt the force of it, like a giant hand squeezing the air from his body until his ribs creaked, and he felt himself falling backwards. There was a terrible moment when he could not draw breath and his chest was a wall of fire. And then air came again, sweet even while thick with the metallic scent of blood.

Dazed, he opened his eyes and saw blotchy grey-black and little more. His body was chilled and he felt wet earth beneath his palms. For a few terrifying seconds he feared he'd been buried alive. He breathed deeply of the cold air. The fear passed and with it, his disorientation. He was in the bottom of the crater.

Someone coughed nearby. He felt around for his rifle but could find nothing. There was still the pistol at his hip. Would the water have already soaked through the bullet casings? He tried to right himself but the movement sent pain as sharp as a hot poker shooting up and down his left leg. Sucking in deep breaths of air, he pushed himself into a sitting position. He found there with him not an enemy soldier, but one of his own, heaving up his supper upon discovering himself to be kneeling in the still-warm innards of a comrade. No, _her_self. It was the princess.

The night's rainfall had drained into the bottom of the crater, covering him to the waist, and he could feel the chill water and mud leeching the heat from his limbs. Seth dragged himself to the drier ground at the edge of the crater and propped himself against the incline, trying to get himself as much out of the sludge as he could. Steeling himself, he reached down to his injured leg, grimacing when he found the source of his discomfort, a hole just above his knee. He brought his hand up in front of his face. What he found on his fingers was redder than mud.

"Dammit."

He turned his attention back to his other problem. The sound of retching had stopped.

"I'm sorry," Eirika said, wiping her mouth with her sleeve once her belly's heaves had ceased.

"It's normal," he replied. "What are you doing here?"

"We were sent off to help you get the other man out."

"I told you to go back to the rear trench," he snapped.

"Is that what you were saying? I couldn't hear you."

"_Eirika_."

She ignored him and crawled away from the corpse, closer to Seth. Her eyes scanned over him. "You're hurt?"

"My leg."

His eyes turned to the corpse, but he could not recognise him, whoever had accompanied Eirika. The grenade blast had sliced open his belly like a pig for slaughter, and debris from the side of the pit covered his remains from the chest up. Blown up and buried. How very thorough death was sometimes. But better that than the drawn-out deaths between the trenches when no medic could reach you and you lay sprawled in the mud or tangled in barbed wire, or the fevered days of waiting in a medical camp for gangrene to eat you alive.

The rain washed blood from the corpse's open belly, making pink rivulets of it, before it disappeared into the muddy sludge at the bottom of the crater. In the end, even blood, bright as poppies, turned to grey.

Seth glanced up as a new sound caught his attention, a staccato tapping. Eirika's teeth chattering. She was perched on the incline, hugging herself and shivering, her back to the corpse. On the other side of the trench he could see Phillips, but the wet sound of his breathing had stopped. Two corpses then.

Eirika's boots splashed in the muck as she stood and made her way over to him. "Which leg?" she asked.

"The left."

He was more than a little surprised when, without hesitation, she reached for the knife at her belt and cut a slit in his pant leg to inspect the wound. "It's a bullet not shrapnel," she announced. "It went straight through." And before he could speak again she reached for a small canteen in her hip pocket and poured the contents onto the wounds on either side of his leg. He hissed as the liquid burned in the open wound.

"That's not water," he said.

"I didn't drink my rum ration."

"Hoarding rum is against regulations," he noted.

"I'm an officer. I can get away with things."

He huffed but when she offered him what was left of the rum he drank it gladly.

"Sorry," she murmured as she undid several buttons of his tunic and reached into it. Every soldier had first aid dressings sewn into the front of his uniform and Seth watched in utter amazement as she tore these from his tunic and proceeded to bandage the wound in his leg.

"You've done this before."

She paused and looked up to meet his eyes. "I'm blooded, Seth."

His heart began to thud against his ribs. "You saw combat? Where? When?"

"At Border Mulan, three weeks ago. We were on our way here but they diverted our group. They had intelligence suggesting an upcoming assault on the lines there. And they were right."

"But, Eirika... Border Mulan was... We were told there was near-continuous shelling and heavy artillery fire, that the attack lasted two days."

"Three."

"And that the fighting was..."

"Bad."

"The early casualty reports were–"

"Bad."

She held his gaze as she spoke and he knew it was the truth. He clenched his fists until his knuckles ached. All the times he had imagined her safe in Castle Frelia, that he had entertained himself during the dreary hours by picturing her walking its heated hallways, sipping afternoon tea in its sunny parlours, curling up beneath heaps of soft blankets at night... when really she'd been...

The thought of her crawling on her belly across a field of mud and corpses, made bile rise up his throat.

"How could you do this?" he said finally. "Prince Ephraim was always the reckless one."

"It wasn't how I'd planned it," she whispered.

For some minutes they listened to the pattering rain and the rivulets of water cascading into the crater. "You should get back to the trench," he said.

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm not leaving you here."

"It isn't a request."

She jutted her chin out. "I don't take orders from you, Seth."

"Eirika–"

"It's slick, but the rope is still anchored. You can make it up. I'll help you." Soaked to the bone, the cold seemed to sap his will to argue just as quickly as his heat. "We'll wait until the fighting slows. If I hasn't by the first lightening of the sky we'll go then."

"All right."

The sound of gunfire seemed more distant now and the rain's cold less biting.

"Seth? Seth?"

When he closed his eyes he was happy to see a warm blackness wash away the chill grey.

#

Seth dreamed he was awake. He was on a stretcher being carried out of the trenches. Eirika was holding his hand, her long hair falling around her shoulders as she smiled down at him. He was being sent home, away from the mud and the rats and the dead men. But why was it so cold? Was it winter yet? Didn't he have boots on? Why were his feet so cold?

Seth's eyes sprang open and were met with the sight of ash coloured mud. Glancing down at his sodden boots, he did his best to wiggle his half-frozen toes. Eirika was next to him, pressed against his side, her attention on something in her hands.

"Oh," she said, shifting to look at him. "You passed out for a little bit there."

"Is that... my notebook?"

She ducked her head so he could not see her face beneath her steel helmet. "I– well– yes."

His brows creased. "You were reading my notebook?"

"I saw it in your pocket. I thought it was your latest letter. And then... and then I just got curious. I only saw a little – when there was light from a flare."

He shifted, uneasy that she had read those broken verses. They were not poems, not really. Just lines... about what was out here. "I didn't mean for anyone to read that."

"I wish you'd been this honest in your letters. They read like military dispatches."

"I didn't want to worry you."

"How could you stand this? For a year!" She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. Her clothes were soaked through and caked with mud. Even her face was grey with it. "Back in Frelia I was told that conditions on the front were–" A dry laugh escaped her throat. "The exact phrase was 'less than ideal.' But they never told me how it was– _is_."

In his mind's eye he saw her as she'd been before the war, tall and lovely, well-spoken, and quick witted, perhaps a mite too idealistic for her own good, but charming. Utterly, hopelessly charming. "I didn't want you to know about... this," he said, motioning around them as if to encompass all the war – the trenches, the mud, the corpses, the misery. All of it.

She looked up at him beneath the brim of her helmet. "And when you and Ephraim came back to me, we'd have been strangers."

He remained silent, listening to the staccato rhythm of the guns above.

"You shouldn't have left like you did," she said finally.

"I told you," he replied, his voice gruff, "Innes wouldn't take counsel and I'm sure he was glad to be rid of me."

"But, Seth, you barely spoke to me. Most soldiers rush off to marry their sweethearts before heading to the front. _You_ acted as if we were barely more than acquaintances! You were courting me before the war broke out!"

For a moment he was struck with the absurdity of the situation. They were pinned in a muddy hole in the dead of night in the rain with two dead men while some hundred yards away Grado soldiers were shooting at them and throwing grenades. Could there be a less likely place to discuss marriage? He almost laughed.

"Is that funny?" she snapped. "I assumed your intentions were honourable, that you hoped to marry me."

They had walked in the gardens arm in arm, on the estate that had belonged to her family for centuries. Everything had been in bloom, a world of colour and birdsong. She'd looked like a nymph amidst all the greenery, vibrant and innocent, as he'd leaned close to brush his lips over hers. It seemed like another life, like a dream.

"Of course I did," he said.

"But then why did you–"

"I didn't want you to wait."

"What?"

He tried to wiggle his toes again. They'd gone numb. The wound in his leg burned like hellfire, though. "I didn't want you to have to wait for me. I wanted you to be free to go on with your life."

She stared at him. She stared the way she had when he'd reported that Imperial Grado had launched an attack on them, as if there were some mistake, some other explanation, as if she'd misheard. "Free?" she repeated.

"This war could go on for years."

"And how can any of us go on with our lives when things are like this?"

He stuffed his hands under his arms trying to restore some warmth to his digits. If he lived to see another winter in the trenches he thought he'd probably regret it. He didn't look at her when she spoke again.

"You and Ephraim and Tana are the most important people to me in all the world. All I'm asking of you now is that you get better and that you help me find Ephraim and the Dark Stone. The rest is... The rest can wait."

It occurred to him that they might both be killed in their attempt to return to the trench. Or that his wound might turn to gangrene and leave him to burn away with fever in a medical trench. Perhaps nothing they said tonight would ever matter. Even so, he reached out and draped an arm around her shoulders. "We need to go," he said. But he squeezed her close even as he spoke.

#

Seth scraped his hands raw using the rope to pull himself up the muddy slope. His breath came in ragged heaves and white spots danced in his vision. "Start moving," he told Eirika. "I'll be right behind you."

Belly-down in the mud, she glanced over at him. "You were always a terrible liar, Seth." And then she grabbed his arm, put it around her neck, and crawled forward, tugging him along.

"And you were always stubborn," he replied.

"Stop wasting your breath. I don't need you passing out again."

And so they crawled inch by inch through the mud, past bodies that no longer moved, and the rats that scrabbled over them. Eirika's breath caught when a spray of bullets churned the mud not two feet away from them, but they kept inching forward until they reached the barbed wire entanglements. They moved through too quickly and he felt the bite of the metal cut through his sleeve. He heard Eirika curse and saw her bite her lip, wincing. But they kept crawling.

He called out the night's password so the sentries would know them. Guns were lowered, hands reached out over the trench to pull them over, pull them in. His vision blurred again to white spots, but he drew in deep breaths to cling to consciousness.

"Major! We'd thought we might've seen the last you."

Seth's lips twitched. "Sorry to disappoint, Garcia. You won't get that promotion just yet."

"He needs a stretcher," Eirika said.

Garcia peered at her, tilting his head to try to see her face beneath the rim of her helmet. "Lieutenant Erina was sent with special orders for me," Seth explained.

"With respect, Major, I don't think you'll be carrying out any orders for a few months."

"Maybe not," he replied. "The lieutenant will come with me," Seth added. "Take care of things here, Captain."

"Yes, sir. Good luck, Major."

The rain had tapered off into drizzle, but the trench was flooded with muddy water, calf deep. A pair of medics, as soaked and muddy as everyone else, finally arrived and eased Seth onto a stretcher to be carried to a medical camp behind the lines. From there they would see.

Eirika kept pace as they sloshed through the trenches. When the medics paused to manoeuvre around a tight corner, Seth found her looking down at him. He smiled.

The world was grey. But her eyes were blue.

**The End**

**

* * *

**

**A/N:** This may well be the strangest fanfic I've yet written. But I've always been fascinated by World War I and wanted to write _something_ about it. I hope I've not made a travesty out a deeply tragic period in western history. Also if any WWI afficionados happen to read this I apologise for whatever inaccuracies remain as I am by no means an expert.

On a sidenote, the lack of a demonym (i.e. Frelia-Frelian) for Renais and Grado is really irksome. A person from Grado is what? A Gradoan? A Gradon? A Gradolese? So I went with "Imperial" for Imperial Grado though I realize that in WWI literature "Imperial" refers to the British.

Originally I had meant to make this a oneshot, but I might well write more pieces so I'm going to mark this as "unfinished" for now.


	2. Unseen

**A/N:** By all rights this should be part of my one-shot collection _Sundry_ as it was written for the seventh FE_contest challenge on LJ; however, since it's a companion piece to _Grey_ I felt it should go here instead even if it's a bit lighter in tone.

* * *

**Unseen**

"Try to get some sleep, Major," the nurse said before she put out the lights. "You need your rest to get well."

Fine words indeed from his chief tormentor, Seth thought. The darkness settled over the medical ward as she left, and soon there were snores coming from every quarter. Seth kept his eyes open until they adjusted to the scant light.

His leg ached. Sometimes – especially in the morning when they came to clean the wound – he wished they had taken the leg off completely.

Though the bullet that had hit his left leg had gone straight through, there was great risk of infection from the microbes in the very soil on which they'd fought, farmers' fields that for centuries had been enriched with animal dung. The doctors' solution? Drainage holes: cut away the flesh from the entry and exit wounds and leave a hole in the limb so oxygen could kill off the infection. Every morning, to clean the wound they pulled a sterile cord through the hole in his limb and then left it there overnight. It hurt worse than being shot had.

Someone to his left launched into a coughing fit that eventually faded into a wheeze and finally a snore. Still Seth kept his eyes open. Even here, far from the front lines, he thought he could hear the blast of exploding shells.

The white sheets of the empty bed across the aisle were visible while all else remained a vague, grey-black outline. He raised his eyes to the ceiling as rain began to patter the hospital rooftop. Before the war, back home in Renais, he had found the tinkle of raindrops soothing, but now it grated on his nerves like nothing else. He had spent too many days and nights soaked to the skin, his feet frozen as water turned the bottom of his trench into a muddy pit.

At the far end of the ward, someone moaned and then cried out. There was a rustle of sheets as the man sat up and then, after several minutes, lay down again. But Seth was used to that. It was commonplace in the dugouts where he'd spent his nights until recently. There was not a soldier in the trenches, even among the officers, who could say he'd never been visited by nightmares – not truthfully in any case.

Officers' dugout were relatively comfortable, though even the officers reeked in the summer for lack of water to wash with. In autumn and winter, though, everything just smelled of damp rot. He remembered once nearly a year ago during his first winter in the trenches, sitting at the central table holding a package wrapped with brown paper with his name on it. He'd sliced it open with his belt knife and revealed the contents. Shaving cream, woolen socks, chewing gum, toothpaste, and something else, carefully wrapped. A treat.

A pair of lieutenants came by and saluted stiffly as they saw him before heading to the opposite end of the dugout to chat in low tones. Seth's eyes followed them a moment but then returned to the item in his hand. He unwrapped it with care and, in spite of the ache of his frozen feet and the distant rumble of shelling further down the line, he smiled at the hunk of rum-soaked fruitcake. Though letters reached the front easily, packages were another matter and many a soldier was left peeling green fuzz off food sent to him from home. But fruitcake? That would stay good until a week after doomsday.

"Clever girl."

Seth glanced over his shoulder when he heard footsteps on the stairway leading into the bowels of the earth to their shellproof dugout. "Good day, Major," Captain Garcia said with a salute as he reached the final step and noticed Seth there.

"Captain, come join me," Seth said, motioning to another chair. Garcia hesitated a moment but then took a seat, his spine straight, hands in his lap. "At ease," Seth said with a sigh.

Garcia relaxed – slightly – and leaned back into the chair. "What can I do for you, Major?"

"I've gotten something from home," he said and, slicing off a piece of cake with his knife, offered it to Garcia. Garcia's eyes darted from the cake to Seth's face as if Seth had offered him a grenade with the pin already pulled. "Please," Seth said quietly. "I should be ashamed to be the only man not to share his treats."

Garcia nodded then and took the cake, popping it into his mouth and chewing slowly. Fruit and sweets were something even the officers rarely saw on the front lines, though they were lucky enough to get more than the tinned beef and biscuits that were the usual fare for the men. "I know the other officers are a bit skittish," Garcia said, "but they're just a little overawed."

"Because of my previous rank."

"Mmm. They're not used to dealing with generals. And you were King Fado's right hand no less."

"I'm only a major now."

"As you say, sir," Garcia replied with the hint of a smile. Seth heaved a sigh. "Pardon my asking, Major," Garcia began as he chewed on another piece, "but who sent the cake?"

"Hmm?" Seth glanced away for a moment and swallowed another mouthful. "Oh. It was Eirika," he replied at which point Garcia nearly choked and had to reach for the canteen of water at his belt.

"The princess?"

"Yes," Seth replied, knowing that this was not helping his cause of making himself seem like a normal officer. "I'm sure she didn't make it herself, of course." And then, at the horrified expression on Garcia's face, "I don't have any family anymore, so she offered to send care packages to me as well as to her brother." He did not mention the fact that he'd been courting her before the war with Imperial Grado had broken out.

After that, though, he'd always managed to share his packages with Garcia, though the Captain was embarrassed to be unable to return the favour. His son Ross was his only family and the boy had enlisted, much to Garcia's distress.

As Seth thought on it, while he lay in the darkness of the hospital ward, his eyelids began to grow leaden in spite of himself. The tin and timber of the dugout melted into the mud and sandbags of the trenches...

**ooo**

Seth shot up into sitting position, his breath coming in pants, his body covered with a sheen of sweat even as the dream released him from it steely grip. He was shaking.

He started as he felt a hand on his arm. "Seth?"

"Eirika? What are you doing here?" He tried to keep his voice down, but he heard the man in the next bed shift restlessly. Straining to see in the dark, he could just make out her features. It was still strange to see her with her hair cropped. At least she was no longer in a uniform.

"I snuck in," she replied.

Seth groaned. "It's a wonder anyone really believed you were a lieutenant."

"I did go through basic training along with Ephraim, you know. We took it seriously." And then, very quietly, "More seriously than anyone believed."

Seth had been appalled when Ephraim had insisted on fighting in the front lines. With King Fado dead, Ephraim was now the head of state, even if he was a head of state in exile. But that did not compare to the horror he'd experienced a scant few days ago when he'd seen Eirika march into his trench in the garb of a Frelian soldier.

"The nurse said you hadn't been sleeping," Eirika said after a minute's silence. Seth grunted. The darkness lay heavy before his eyes but he could still see the nightmare all too well. "Bad dreams?" He did not reply. She reached out to touch his arm again, something she would never have dared to do before the war. Their courtship had been new and tentative still when Grado had launched its sudden invasion. Though they had exchanged letters steadily, he had not seen her in over a year.

"I didn't sleep well for days after the fighting in Mulan," she confessed. His chest constricted at the words. While trying to reach him, she had managed to end up on the firing line in a battle that had cost the Renais and Frelian armies several thousand troops. He could see her in his mind's eye, firing her rifle, charging enemy lines, diving into the dirt for cover, see the bullets that had grazed her. A mere centimetre from death, a dozen times over. He felt cold beneath his sheets.

"I had the same nightmare over and over," she continued. "I kept seeing myself on the battlefield again. The air was so thick with bullets and shrapnel that it was like hail. And my rifle locked up. Or it was out of bullets. Or I had lost it. Every time I closed my eyes I saw myself there with no weapon and no cover." Her voice quavered as she spoke.

Seth could barely see her in the darkness but he reached out to touch her face, to know she was real and not a spectre. Her skin was warm beneath his fingertips. "At first," she said, her voice now only a faint whisper, "during the fighting... I wished you were there with me– to protect me. And then I was glad that you weren't. I was glad you were somewhere else, somewhere safe– or saf_er_ in any case."

"You should go back to Frelia."

"No. Not until I know what's become of Ephraim."

"Eirika–"

"I need to find Ephraim. And if– if anything's happened to him, I need to finish what he began and find this weapon Grado's working on– the Dark Stone."

To this he said nothing. He clenched his fists and sat in silence on his hospital bed, staring at the woolen blankets, grey in the dim light, trying to ward off the vision that came whenever he closed his eyes. A year he'd been on the front and he'd seen things that should never be seen. He had watched shells tear men's limb's from their torsos, seen rats as big as rabbits, gorged on the flesh of unburied soldiers in no man's land, found pieces of fallen men when digging new trenches. The front was not a battlefield any longer, but a charnel house.

"And you're going to help me as soon as you're well enough to hobble around on crutches. Which means you need to get your rest."

"No."

"Seth–"

"No," he said again, more sharply this time.

She leaned close, both hands gripping his forearm. "I know the dreams are bad. But it'll get better once you're more rested, once–"

"Don't you understand?" he cut in, turning to glower at her through the darkness. "All those times when we were being shelled– for hours at a time– shot at– when– " He clenched the blanket in balled fists, trying to steady his voice, to speak quietly before he woke the whole ward. "The only thing I could take comfort in was that you were safe. Now I feel I'll go mad for worrying."

"I'm right here," she said, leaning in to hold his face in her hands. "I'm safe."

"But you weren't then. I was imagining you safe in Frelia and all the while you were at Mulan. You were– How could you do this? How _could_ you?" He had snagged her arms before she could pull away. She dropped her eyes.

"I didn't want this, Seth. Believe me. Please." Her head drooped, shoulders sagging. "If I could do it over, if I could..." Her shoulders shuddered and he was torn between the desire to shake some good sense into her and the desire to wrap her in his arms and offer what comfort he could. When she looked up at him again he thought he could see a glimmer of tears on her cheeks. "I can't unsee the things I've seen." She shut her eyes a moment. "Or undo the things I've done," she whispered.

Still gripping her forearms, he leaned his brow against hers. For several minutes they remained like that and all he could do was revel in the sound of her steady breathing. When he found the nerve to speak again it was in a hushed whisper. "Whenever I close my eyes what I see is you. I see you– hurt. Or worse. And I can never stop it. I can never do anything. I see– All the ways I've seen soldiers die, I see you– I see your face instead of theirs."

He didn't think he would ever find the words to describe the horror that overcame him in those dreams, so powerful that he woke queasy, his heart racing as if it would beat itself out of his chest. He'd seen her bayoneted, shredded by shrapnel, blown to pieces by shells. Every wound he had seen in a year on the front, he now saw on her. And always he was relegated to watching, helpless to stop it, to save her.

In the darkness, it was difficult to read her features as she pulled away from him. He opened his mouth to speak, afraid that he had said too much, and was startled when she moved from her chair to sit on the edge of his bed. And even more so when she drew back his blankets and lay down next to him – on his right side, away from his injured leg. There was hardly space for two on the narrow hospital bed but she curled in close to him and automatically his arms moved to wind around her.

"I'm here," she whispered, her breath hot against his neck. "I'm safe. Now go to sleep and get better."

_The nurse will have a fit in the morning_.

But that seemed a trivial concern as the steady rhythm of Eirika's breaths soothed his frayed nerves and lulled him to sleep. She was warm and soft in his arms and he thought that perhaps the sheer aliveness of her might be enough to fend off the nightmares, to make him, at least until daylight, unsee.


	3. Darkness

**Darkness**

Seth's crutch slipped on the mud-spattered duckboards. He cursed as he caught himself on his left leg and a jolt of pain shot through the injured limb. Eirika gripped his upper arm to steady him, biting her lip, brow furrowed. "It's fine," he murmured before she could speak.

The staccato thrum of machine guns set his nerves on edge even though they remained in the secondary trench system rather than on the front line. His shoulders were hunched in spite of himself, his head ducked low; he had spent far too long in trenches dug for shorter men. He waited until she dropped her hand before beginning to move again down the communication trench. There would be enough questions as it was without bringing up fraternization issues. After a heated argument he'd finally given in and, in spite of being a princess, and the head of the exiled Renais government, Eirika was once more disguised as Lieutenant Erina. He would never get used to seeing her in the drab uniform of the Renais Armed Forced.

As they reached the main trench, he snagged the first soldier he came across. "Have you seen the Lieutenant Colonel?"

The private stopped and started for a moment, her eyes lingering on the crutch, but then, noticing the Major's insignia on Seth's collar, she saluted. "Yes, sir. He's down that way, sir, with the gunners."

Seth gave a curt nod to dismiss her and then limped through the trench. Crutches were ill-suited for the narrow passages and, in his injured state, he knew he was a liability to everyone around him. He darted a look towards Eirika.

Even at a glance, Seth recognised the Lieutenant Colonel, though he was facing away from them. He stood ramrod straight, arms crossed, chin jutting out as he addressed a young private who kept nodding in response. Though his boots were muddied, his jacket was pristine and freshly pressed. The pistol he wore as a sidearm had an ivory inlay on the grip; Seth wondered if he'd ever had call to use it.

Seth cleared his throat. "Colonel Orson."

Orson spun on his heel. "Can't you see I'm in the middle of–" He stopped, stared. "Seth."

Seth raised a hand from his crutches to salute – he was no longer a general, after all. "Colonel."

Orson's lips twitched ever so slightly as he returned the greeting, his hand limp so that it seemed more like a casual wave than a proper salute. "_Major_," he drawled. "Well this is a surprise."

"I have special orders, sir. Could we have a moment of your time, Colonel?" Seth remained standing at attention as best he could with his crutches; Orson had not told him to stand at ease.

"Special Orders? How... unusual." He paused for a moment to consider. "Let me finish up here. There's a dugout in the next communication trench. I'll meet you there, Major."

"Yes, sir." Seth snapped another salute and then limped back the way he'd come, Eirika in tow.

"He didn't seem very glad to see you," Eirika noted. "I thought you knew Orson."

"Perhaps he's ashamed of our past connection. I've been demoted after all."

Eirika tutted. "It was a voluntary demotion. You've nothing to be ashamed about."

"Not everyone would see it that way."

"Seth..."

They could smell the dugout before they pulled back the blanket used as its door. Even in the coolness of autumn, the reek of unwashed bodies was overwhelming and he heard Eirika huff several times as they stepped inside. Once their eyes had adjusted to the dim light, they made their way down the wooden steps. The scent of smoke wafted up from below and, as they reached the bottom step, some twenty feet belowground, they could see a flickering fire in the centre of the dugout. Several faces, black with soot, peered up at them.

A few soldiers busied themselves with a game of cards, a few more with reading, while a half dozen more were sprawled on the floor sleeping – or attempting to. One of the card players, paused from the game to scrub at his face with his sleeve, wiping away some of the grime. In spite of the dark bristle on his chin, he looked barely old enough to have enlisted, yet something in the private's face struck Seth as familiar. It took him a moment to finally place it.

"Ross?"

Ross turned and then, noticing Seth's rank, sprang to his feet and saluted. "Sir!"

"As ease, private. You are Garcia's son then?"

"Yes sir." And then, his brow crinkling. "Is he..."

"He's fine – or was a few weeks ago when I saw him last." Relief was evident on the young man's face. "I'm Major Seth. Your father served in my company. He showed me your photograph once."

Ross appeared abashed as he asked, "Is he still angry about my enlisting? Because if he's asked you to talk me into getting reassigned, sir, with all due respect–"

"No, nothing like that. I'm here on special business." Ross nodded. "And Garcia isn't angry... so much as worried. He spoke often of you, of how proud he was."

A grin spread over Ross's bristly face. "I've got to live up to the old man, you know. Can't let him hog all the glory," he said wryly, glancing down at the mud and grime that caked his uniform.

They all turned as a voice boomed from the top of the stairway. "Clear out. Everyone. Now. That's an order, privates." The soldiers scowled, not recognising the officer's voice – after all, it was not often the Lieutenant Colonel paid a visit to the front line – but they all knew an order when they heard one.

Variously prodding or, in difficult cases, kicking their sleeping comrades, the soldiers rose and began moving up the stairs, many of them grumbling oaths under their breath. Eirika and Seth waited for them to clear out.

The sound of Orson's steps was swallowed up by the sandbags and timber that reinforced the earthen walls as he made his way down the steps. "So, what is it that brings you all the way out here in your current state, Major?"

Eirika stepped forward. "I asked him to bring me to you."

Orson scowled. She had neither saluted nor addressed him by rank. "I realize Seth doesn't have the rank he used to, but last I checked a major does trump a lieutenant. Or should I brush up on my regulations?"

Eirika removed her helmet so that he could better see her face. "You've worked closely with my brother and been invited to dine at my home on more than one occasion. Surely you recognise me, Colonel?"

"Princess Eirika?" He appeared taken aback and stood there staring dumbly until Seth cleared his throat. Finally Orson remembered his manners and bowed. "Princess, I apologise. I'm simply shocked to see you in such a place."

"I've been travelling incognito," she replied. "I came to ask for news of my brother."

Orson shifted. "Your brother?"

"Yes. I believe you were in the same unit as Ephraim until a few months ago." Licking his lips, Orson pulled out a gold pocket watch and inspected it. His brow was shiny with perspiration in spite of their drafty surroundings. "In fact, I had thought you were still with him, deep in Grado territory until it came to my attention that you'd been stationed here some weeks ago."

"It grieves me to inform you that your brother, Prince Ephraim, was captured by enemy forces."

"Captured?" Her voice quavered. "When? Where?"

"We were forced to surrender at Renvall. I managed to escape but there was nothing I could do for the prince besides returning to our side and informing Prince Innes of his fate."

Seth's attention, fixed on Orson, shifted momentarily to Eirika. She was trembling. "Do you know where he's being held?" Again Orson was checking his pocket watch. "Colonel?"

"Princess?"

"Where is my brother being held?"

"I'm afraid I can't say."

Seth moved forward a pace, a step in front of the princess. "Colonel, how is it you managed to escape precisely?"

Scowling, Orson shrugged. "Pure chance. We came under fire and I was able to make a break for it."

"Under fire? I thought the prince was deep in Grado territory."

"We had tried to escape, to move east towards the Jehanna border. Perhaps it was an overeager Jehanna patrol we encountered. I never had the chance to find out."

"And you simply... left the prince of Renais in enemy hands?"

"There was nothing I could do, _Major_ Seth." The gold chain of Orson's pocket watch clinked against his wrist as he gripped the timepiece in a white-knuckled grasp. Seth shifted his weight onto his good leg, loosening his grip on the crutches.

"Please, Colonel Orson," Eirika said, voice even, though her face was pale. "We're only trying to find out what's become of Ephraim."

"I'm afraid there's little more I can tell you, Princess. And I really must be on my way."

Seth inched forward. "Why are you in such a hurry, Colonel? Surely you have time for the princess of Renais." Orson's brow was slick with sweat.

"I have a thousand men under my command and important matters that need to be seen to. Perhaps you've forgotten what it's like to responsible for a battalion, _Major_."

Seth dropped his crutches the moment he saw that flicker of movement. As they clattered to the ground, Seth caught Orson's wrist even as the Colonel drew his sidearm from its holster.

"Colonel Orson!" Eirika's dismay was obvious. "Why?

"I must," Orson grunted as he grappled with Seth. "For Monica."

Orson cursed as Seth wrenched his wrist and the pistol fell. Eirika scrabbled to retrieve the weapon, but a moment later, Orson's knee smashed into Seth's injured leg. Seth crumpled and Orson raced up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Heart racing, it took a moment for Seth to realize that the crack of gunshots that followed came from behind him. He turned to find Eirika, pistol aimed at the stairway, but Orson was already gone.

"Seth, are you–"

"I'm all right. Hand me my crutches and–"

A crash like thunder, but resonating deep in the earth, sending tremors through the walls, stopped them cold. They knew that sound. Both of them knew.

Artillery.

The trenches were being shelled. Somewhere on the Grado line, perhaps five or six kilometres away, guns the size of a plough horse were firing off shells that weighed nearly as much as Eirika herself.

Dirt shook loose from between the timber rafters as another shockwave rattled their haven. "He knew," Eirika murmured. "Orson knew this was coming."

"He's been passing information to Grado," Seth snarled. "He's a traitor." They needed to go after Orson, but he would be long gone before Seth could hobble up the stairs, and he wouldn't risk dragging Eirika into the trenches while they were being shelled. Dugouts had their risks, but when you were caught in the trenches there was nothing to do but sit and pray that the next shell didn't have your name on it.

The air was growing hazy as dust was blown in from the trench outside. Weaving in and out of the thunder of the shells were the higher pitch of screams. Eirika swallowed hard and retrieved Seth's crutches, passing them to him with hands that shook. She had survived the shelling at Mulan, but she had not spent a year on front as he had. He reached out to steady those trembling fingers.

His hands still clasped hers when the shell hit their dugout.

**ooo**

Seth woke in darkness. For long moments he remained still, trying to regain his senses. The air was thick with dust, but he could breathe. He could wiggle all his fingers and toes. His leg throbbed, but only a little more than usual. He moved to sit up and cursed when his head struck something solid.

"Seth? Seth are you there?" Her voice was hoarse. She coughed and, reaching towards the sound, his fingers found her forearm and gripped it fiercely. Her fingers curled around his arm with equal fervour.

"Are you all right?"

"I– I think so. We're... we're trapped aren't we?"

"A shell must have landed near the shelter, but it's stopped now. They'll dig us out."

"Will they?" she whispered.

Seth nodded and then realized that it was useless in the dark. "They will. It's happened to everyone who's been in the trenches more than a few months. They'll dig."

"You've been buried before?"

"Twice." It had not been an enjoyable experience. The air had become thick with the breathing of the captives, several of them all trapped together, praying they would be rescued before they suffocated. It had taken hours, longs hours spent praying for the sound of shovels and pickaxes. He squeezed her arm. "One thing infantrymen know how to do is dig."

"I wish we had a light."

"It would only use up our air faster." And then, as her hand clenched spasmodically around his arm, "There are only two of. We should be all right for a long while."

"What if they think no one was down here after Orson cleared them out?"

A bark of laughter escaped him. "They're probably think Orson was still down here with us. Though I'm not sure if that will make them dig faster... or slower."

"Do you think it's true, Seth? About Ephraim?"

"I don't believe we can take anything from Orson at face value. He's a traitor."

"I hope you're right." He could hear her shifting. Much as he had, she tried to rise and knocked her head against a low beam. He heard the thump and a string of very un-princess-like curses.

"I wasn't aware you had such a broad vocabulary, princess."

"I picked up a few things in Mulan." His stomach roiled at the very thought of it, that she had seen combat. Before now he'd never believed her capable of such recklessness. "Who's Monica?"

"Monica?"

"Orson mentioned her?"

"Ah. I believe that's his wife. I heard she was very ill but that was over a year ago, before the start of the war. "

"What could he be thinking?"

Seth groped around with his free hand, trying to get some sense of the dimensions of their prison. A pair of beams slanted overhead and but he could feel nothing to his left. There was air enough for hours. He froze as he heard the faint sound of scraping. Hope flared like a blazing torch but was extinguished just as quickly when he realized the sound was not coming from above but from somewhere to his right. It was not the sound of digging men.

"What's that?" Eirika asked nervously. Again, a scratching sound, closer now, and then a sort of clicking. Eirika shrieked, her leg kicking out and catching him in his right calf.

"Dammit!"

"I'm sorry. There was something–" She jostled against him once more and another string of oaths slipped from her mouth. Seth was torn between being amused and appalled. "Rats," she groaned. "I hate rats."

Seth reached into his jacket pocket where he kept a booklet of matches. Fumbling in the dark for a moment, he managed to light one. In the light of the tiny flame a pair of dark eyes glinted near Seth's boots. A whiskered nose twitched and the rat sat up on its hindquarters and peered at them as if assessing how long it might have to wait before it could make a meal of them. Another skittered at the edge of the circle of light, its fur dust-coated, its eyes bright and eager. The match burned down to his fingers and Seth cursed, dropping it.

"At least they're small," he said.

"Small?"

He nodded. "The ones that live out in no man's land – I've seen some as big as cats." He felt one of them giving his boot an experimental nibble and kicked at it. A satisfying squeak followed. "I think if we shift to the left there should be enough space to sit up."

Cautious of the overhanging timbers, they managed to move into a sitting position. They could still hear the sounds of rats scrabbling nearby, but the creatures seemed less interested now that the two soldiers were no longer supine.

"Before I left Frelia, I'd never even seen a rat," Eirika confessed. "Now... I woke one night with one of them crawling over my face." She shuddered.

"I once had one crawl up my trousers to get at a bit of biscuit I'd left in my pockets."

He felt her shifting next to him, moving her arms to hug herself. "How can you stand it?" She spoke in a whisper, but here every breath seemed loud.

"I thought about home," he replied. _I thought about you._

Eirika heaved a sigh. "I'm sorry about this. It's my fault we're here."

"No. It isn't yours." His hands were balled into fists as he thought of Orson. All these long years Orson had served Renais, served its royal family – _Eirika's_ family. That he could throw it away, that he could be a traitor... If Orson had lost respect for Seth since his demotion, that was one matter, but risking the lives of their troops, of Eirika herself, and abandoning Prince Ephraim – these things were unforgivable.

Eirika cursed again and swatted at something in the dark. "Orson is every bit as bad as these damnable rats."

"You'll have to learn to mind your tongue again when you return to court."

"We're tapped in a hole in the ground and your chief concern is my language?"

The reminder did him little good. Before Renais's capital was taken by Grado's forces, King Fado had ordered Seth to take her to the safety of Frelia, to protect her. What a fine job of it he was doing. "You shouldn't have left Frelia."

"Neither should you!" she snapped. "Even if Innes refused to take your counsel, surely you could have done more there than on the front. And why didn't you _tell_ me? I do have some clout in Frelia. I could have spoken to King Hayden. I could have interceded on your behalf. Instead you just..." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "You just left."

"We've already discussed this."

"You left _me_. You promised, Seth, you promised you would never..." She snagged his jacket in the darkness. "Why?" she demanded.

Something between a grunt and a growl rumbled through his chest. He tried to remember what it was to be patient, to know his place, but he wanted to shake her for her stubbornness, for not letting well enough alone, for endangering herself, for making him break his promise to the king. "You're here," he snarled. "You've seen what it's like. Would you have had me marry you and then return a cripple?"

"That wouldn't matter," she returned, her breath hot against his face in the darkness.

"Would you still want me if I lost an arm? A leg? Both legs? If shrapnel took off half my face, if it left me unable to have children? What would your fellow royals think if you ended up married to a mutilated soldier? A cripple? A eunuch?"

"That's all very well and good, Seth, but you would never have been in danger of all that if you _hadn't left_! What really happened? What did Innes say to you?"

"Innes?"

"Yes, Innes. He forced your hand somehow, didn't he? More than just ignoring your military advice."

Seth kept his tone as even as he could manage. "No. Of course not."

"Don't lie to me, Seth," she said quietly. "You were alway poor at it. I can hear the lie even in the dark."

Leaning his head back against the dirt and torn sandbags that made up one side of their cavern, Seth heaved a sigh. "He saw me leaving your quarters very late one evening and... drew unwarranted conclusions."

"My quarters? But when... Oh."

It had been Princess Tana who had asked him to go to her. They had been reeling from the sudden attack on Renais, the murder of King Fado, and their flight to the Frelian border. Reports had been trickling in of the harsh treatment of the Renais population – executions, entire towns burned, all by a country that had been their ally for generations. He'd been spending all his time in war councils, giving the Frelians all the information he could about Renais's defences, what Grado might use, where they could move from, anything and everything that he thought might help them fend off the invaders and retake Renais.

He had been worried and worn when the princess of Frelia had come to him. "I'm concerned about Eirika," Princess Tana had said. "General Seth, she's my friend, but I..." She'd glanced away from him as if embarrassed. "I still have everything she's lost. I still have my father, my brother, my home. You're all she has right now. And I know– she said in her letters that you were close. Please, General, could you– could you just make sure she's all right?"

He would never forget Eirika's eyes that night, swollen from crying. She'd looked pale and harried and thin, a shade of the elfin beauty who had walked with him in the gardens that spring. He had held her as her shoulders shook with sobs, all the while wishing for it to be over. Nothing would soothe her, he knew, though he'd stroked her hair, pressed his lips to the top of her head. Somewhere in all that he had promised that he was there, that he would never leave her. He would have said anything to make her stop crying.

Seth was jolted from his reverie as something scurried over his leg. Cursing he, kicked it off. "But, Seth," Eirika was saying. "Innes couldn't really think– I mean I had attendants. They could confirm that you were– that we were just... talking."

"I said as much, but Prince Innes saw things otherwise, even when I informed him that I'd had your father's consent to court you. He made it very clear that whatever King Fado's position might have been before the war, I was not deserving of the honour and that I was placing your reputation at stake."

"Innes... used _me_ to send you out here?"

He opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came out.

"You really are here because of me, then. Everything you've been through is–"

"It's not your doing any more than our being in this pit is. It was Prince Innes and my own doubts that landed me here. I didn't wish to burden you further. After what Innes said I thought perhaps he was right, that perhaps it would be for the best if I left."

"For the best? Seth..." There was steel in her voice as she went on. "Perhaps next time you'd like to consult me before you make such a decision – a decision that affects _both_ of us."

"I'm sorry, Eirika. I've given you far too little credit, I know."

"Innes's motive weren't selfless, you know. He pressed his suit as soon as you left."

Seth went rigid. The idea of the prince of Frelia speaking honeyed words to her while Seth had found himself barking orders at terrified boys, ordering them to be slaughtered by Grado's machine guns... that Innes should walk with her in the palace gardens while Seth had been crawling on his belly in mud thick with barbed wire and blood... "And you didn't..."

"Of course not," she snapped. "_I_ don't go back on my promises."

In darkness so thick he could not see his own hands, he reached out to her, gripping first her arms, her shoulders, before he finally held her face in his hands. "Eirika, please... I _am_ sorry."

He thought he could feel the heat of her cheeks beneath his palms. "Seth... I just... I need to find Ephraim and learn what Grado is up to, what this 'Dark Stone' really is, but I need your help to do it, and I need to know... I need to know you won't go away again."

At that moment, more than anything, he wished he could see her blue eyes. "I'll remain by your side for as long as I'm fit to do so."

She pulled away from him. "As long as you're fit?"

He drew her closer again. "For as long as you want me to then."

"I can't see your face." Her hand moved through the darkness until she found the line of his jaw, fingers sliding over dirt and scratches, lingering on a raised scar by his left ear where a bit of shrapnel had grazed him some months past. "Keep your promise this time," she whispered.

He had promised King Fado that he would protect her; he'd thought that by leaving her be he was, but now... how did you protect anyone from a war that killed men on a whim? Shrapnel and shelling, machine gun fire that rained like sleet, snipers – all these things could kill a soldier at moment's notice. They could kill one man and spare his neighbour. How could he protect her from any of it? Perhaps she was right and simply staying close was the only promise he could keep. "I will," he said.

She leaned her head against him and then they waited in the darkness, with only the sounds of the scrabbling rats to disturb them. The air had grown uncomfortably thick when a rhythmic tapping joined the scratching and squeaking of the rats.

The ring of shovels and pickaxes was more joyful than a symphony, one that rose to its highest pitch when a voice echoed through their enclosure from above them. "Anyone alive down there? Can anyone hear me? General Seth?"

"Ross!" Seth called out. "Ross, we're here!"

"Hold tight. We'll have you out there in two shakes, sir."

Eirika sagged with relief and then threw her arms around his neck. Though he knew that by now, Orson would be long gone, Seth could not bring himself to worry. A shaft of light, blinding after the sightless hours, cut through the darkness and he could once more see the blue of her eyes. For a moment, all his doubts fell away.


	4. Flight

**Flight**

Across the airfield, a pair of infantrymen stopped to gawp at an aeroplane circling overhead. Captain Tana of the Royal Frelian Air Force smirked. It happened every time a trenchman visited the airfield; most of the poor lads and lasses had never seen a plane up close. She had seen her first one as a child during an airshow in Frelia's capital and she'd known from that moment on that she wanted to fly. That had been before anyone had thought to strap machine guns onto them.

With a sigh, Tana turned her attention back to the letter in her hands. She leaned against the fuselage of her plane, relaxing at the feel of the solid wooden frame at her back. Her brow furrowed as she read on. So intent was she that she started when someone approached.

"Sorry, Captain," the mechanic said, "but there's someone here to see you."

"I don't have time for visitors. We're waiting for flight orders."

The mechanic ducked his head and, fidgeting, glanced over his shoulders. "They said you'd really want to see them, ma'am. And they had this." He handed over a creased and slightly crumpled sheet which, she realized with a shock, bore the coat of arms of Renais.

Tana glanced past the mechanic to the pair of infantrymen who approached at a halting pace–one of them was on crutches. The other...Her eyes narrowed. She stared. And then she broke into a trot, hurrying to meet them.

"Eirika!" Tana said, wrapping her arms around her friend. "I've been so worried."

Eirika squeezed her in return. "I'm sorry. We ran into...delays...and I wasn't able to check for letters. I only got your message a few days ago. We hurried here. Are we–"

"Yes, you're in time. They haven't moved him yet, though we just got the orders," she said holding up the letter in her hand. As she released her friend, she stepped back and took a good look at her. Eirika's hair was cropped short–much shorter than Tana's own. She was garbed in the drab tunic and trousers of a Renais Lieutenant, complete with peaked cap and sidearm. Tana could not help but notice the dark circles beneath her eyes.

Her attention turned to the man standing next to the Princess of Renais, leaning heavily on his right crutch. His face was thinner than she remembered, but she recognised him still. "General Seth," she said, offering a smile and a salute.

He shifted, looking quite uncomfortable. "Only a major now, Princess."

"You still outrank me and please, no titles. Only my commanders know I'm not just another pilot, and I'd prefer it remain that way."

Seth raised an eyebrow. "Is Innes aware?"

Tana winced. "Yes and no. He thinks I've been flying one of those," she said jutting her chin towards the line of two-seaters. "Reconnaissance planes," she added, realizing that they might not recognise the planes as she did. Renais had had little in the way of an airforce at the start of the war and there had been no chance to build one up since Imperial Grado held Renais's territory in its entirety. "As far as he knows I've only been patrolling within our lines."

"And that's not the case?" Seth asked warily.

"Come and see him." She gestured for them to follow as she moved towards her plane and patted its wooden fuselage fondly. The two parallel wings and the struts that supported them were painted white, while the fuselage was dull brown, but halfway between the cockpit and the tail was the shining white pegasus that stood as the emblem of her kingdom. At rest now, the biplane's tail lay on the ground, its nose tilted upwards as if the plane were gazing up at the sky. "This is Achaeus."

"This is a...fighter plane," Seth said.

Tana nodded. "And it's fitted with a synchronised machine gun just like the ones the Imperials use."

"Synchronised?" Eirika repeated.

"It can fire through the propeller," Tana explained. "It makes it much easier to fly and shoot at the same time."

Seth looked paler than ever as he eyed the plane. "You're flying a fighter plane."

"Officially," Tana said, "Captain _Tanner_ is flying a fighter plane."

The major looked from her to Eirika with an air of exasperation. "You've both assumed aliases and are fighting unbeknownst to Innes. Two rogue princesses..." He shook his head. "If he ever gets word of my involvement in this, Innes won't bother to have me court-martialled, he'll just have me drawn and quartered."

Smiling up at him, fondness obvious in her features, Eirika reached out to squeeze his arm. "I would never let that happen, Seth."

"And I have a little influence in Frelia myself," Tana added, smiling to cover the sudden ache in her chest. To have found each other again in the middle of the war–she envied them.

She could see them as they would have been without the war, as they should have been. Seth, standing tall, general's stars glittering on the collar of his dress uniform, Eirika, dazzling in an evening dress, her long hair cascading over her shoulders. Arm in arm, they would walk into the ballroom. The assorted guests–princes, politicians, ladies of fashion, and lieutenants–would turn their heads to catch a glimpse of them as they stepped onto the floor and danced. Tana knew she herself would have danced all night long, hoping to catch Ephraim's eye as he stood in a corner discussing the merits of armaments and stratagems with General Duessel and her brother.

What of that now? Just a dream, the fleeting fancy of a sheltered girl, one to be put away like all the playthings of her childhood.

Looking only slightly reassured, Seth's eyes ran the length of the plane. "Forgive me for asking, Captain, but how did this come about?"

Tana shrugged. "I did fly reconnaissance for a while but I managed to talk Syrene into letting me test fly the single-seaters. When she saw what I could do in the cockpit of one of these..." She patted the plane again. "She's risking her career because she believes in me. I have ten kills to my name–or to Captain Tanner's name in any case."

"What's the record?" Eirika asked uncertainly.

Tana grimaced. "I believe the Moonstone has fifteen." Major Valter, the Moonstone, was the most renowned pilot in Grado–and the most feared outside of it. His plane's fuselage was painted the same gold as the Imperial emblem so that other pilots would recognise him at a distance. "It'll be different now that we have better guns. The Imperials won't have an edge on us anymore."

"I wish your squadron luck, Captain," Seth said, eyeing the plane warily. "I must confess that I prefer to do my fighting on the ground."

"At least there aren't any rats in the air," Eirika said with a shudder.

"Rats?" Tana repeated.

The look on Eirika's face then made Tana's chest constrict. "Pray you never need set foot in the trenches." She shook herself. "Shall we go see your prisoner?"

Tana nodded and led the way toward a small manor house that had been comandeered as the squadron's base of operations and barracks. They moved at a leisurely stroll to accommodate Seth's injury. She'd known of Eirika's search for Ephraim and her plan to seek out Seth's aid. The most recent letter she'd had from Eirika had been from a military hospital where Seth's leg was being treated. But after that nothing. "You said you were delayed?"

Eirika glanced at Seth before replying. His expression was grim, his lips pressed together into a thin line. "We discovered that an acquaintance of ours, Colonel Orson, has defected to Grado and that he'd been passing information to them."

She almost laughed. The irony! "I suppose our _guest_ evens the scales then."

"Perhaps," Seth said. "If he has information worth sharing."

Tana shrugged. "He wouldn't tell Syrene a thing. He insists on speaking to someone from Renais." She pointed to a plane that stood alone, a short way from the manor, beneath a canopy to prevent enemy scouts from spotting it from the air. It was painted a greyish blue and emblazoned with the golden wyvern of Imperial Grado. "That's his. It's going to be shipped off today so the engineers can poke at it and see what makes it tick. We don't often get to see an enemy plane intact." And indeed, several mechanics were clustered around it, preparing to dismantle it.

There was a fair bit of saluting from all manner of junior officers and staff as Tana led them into the manor. "He's upstairs," Tana said, glancing apologetically at Seth.

He eyed the narrow stone stairway with evident trepidation, but, without a word, made his way up, step by narrow step. By the time they reached the top, he was alarmingly pale and his brow was slick with perspiration. Eirika clutched his arm to steady him. "Seth–"

"No, it's all right," he cut in. "I only need a moment." He leaned against the nearest wall, taking the weight off his injured left leg.

Tana looked away from Eirika's worried face. She knew worry all too well. The sky was the only place she could escape it.

Before the war, she'd received letters from Eirika that had announced with gleeful exuberance that General Seth, a family friend since he'd been a boy, and a favourite of her father's, was courting her. Tana had met the general during her visits to Renais and had always found him very formal and serious, but Eirika had always spoken fondly of him. They would surely be married now had it not been for the war. It would have been a grand affair–a week's worth of parties filled with music and dancing, feasting and champagne, ball gowns and bow ties. Tana would perhaps have been the maid of honour at the wedding and perhaps, a year or two later, a godmother. Instead...

Seth drew in a deep breath and righted himself. He nodded to Eirika who, in spite of the worry still etched on her features, released his arm. Tana took them to the room where the "guest" was being kept.

A private, clutching a rifle to his chest, stood guard at the door. He saluted as Tana approached. "Captain! I have orders from the squadron leader to allow entry to you, the major, and the lieutenant."

"Open it," she said and without further ado, the private unlocked the door. She held out a hand, inviting Seth and Eirika to go in ahead. They did, blocking her view of the prisoner, and Tana lingered behind them. She didn't want to see his face.

The private glanced at her. "Is there something wrong, Captain?"

Tana shook her head. "No, nothing. It's fine." She stepped into the stuffy room and the door closed behind her. The space was slightly bigger than a closet, the walls plastered but otherwise bare with only a chair and a straw mattress as furniture. A narrow window covered in metal grille, decorative but very sturdy, allowed light to slant into the room in long, golden lozenges.

The prisoner's back was to them as he gazed out the window. "There are some people here to see you," Tana said. "They've come from Renais." He turned and the sunlight illuminated a shaggy mop of blond hair and the hawk-like features of Captain Cormag of Imperial Grado. His lips twitched and a crooked smiled appeared on his craggy face. Tana looked away. It had once been the face of her hero.

Two years before the start of the war, her father, King Hayden, had hosted an international airshow in Frelia's capital. He and Innes both had been forward-thinking about the role of aircraft in Frelia's future and had been strong supporters of new aeronautic developments. The show had brought together pilots, engineers, and mechanics from all over Magvel. Pilots had shown off the capabilities of their new crafts through daring air-acrobatics, and the shining star of that show had been Cormag. She remembered even now as he'd landed. He'd hopped out of his plane and tugged off his aviator goggles to grin at the adoring crowds as if he'd not been risking life and limb just minutes earlier. A sixteen-year-old princess was not allowed much freedom, so she'd only heard tales of the raucous adventures Cormag and the other pilots had had during their stay in the capital. But oh how she'd wanted to be there, to be a part of it all! After the show she had finally pestered her father into allowing her to train as a pilot. She had wanted to fly like him, to be like him. But that was before he'd started killing her friends.

The jagged scar on Cormag's left cheek was new and gave his face a perpetually lopsided air. His brow crinkled as he peered at his visitors. "You're...General Seth?"

"Only a Major now," Seth replied. Tana wondered how often he'd had to say that over the past year and whether it became easier with practice.

"I see. Then the rumours of your accepting a demotion to go to the front were true."

Seth's features remained impassive, but Eirika's eyes burned with ire–not for Cormag, Tana knew, but for Innes. Tana was uncertain of the details, but knew that Innes had had a hand in Seth's predicament.

Cormag's attention turned to Eirika and he raised an eyebrow. "Lieutenant..."

Eirika drew herself up. "I am Princess Eirika of Renais. If you have something to tell us on behalf of Imperial Grado then say it now."

He straightened, eyes alert and boring into Eirika. "Princess Eirika? Then you knew my brother, General Glenn."

"We met, yes. He dined with us once a few years ago. I've not spoken to him since."

"And you won't again." Cormag's eyes blazed. "He's dead."

Eirika fell back a step, dismay plain on her features. "But we've heard nothing of this. How?"

"Oh you'll hear of it soon enough once they announce that he was killed by a small band of Renais assassins led by the crown prince himself."

"No." Eirika shook her head vigorously. "Ephraim would never do such a thing."

He levelled his gaze at Eirika. "And that the princess of Renais orchestrated the entire thing."

"That's outrageous!" Seth snapped at the same time as Tana and Eirika both uttered an alarmed, "What?"

Cormag's lips twisted into a lopsided smile. "It's a very good lie, one the people of Grado will eat up. My brother was a hero to our nation. But I happen to know that the crown prince of Renais was on the Jehanna border the when my brother was murdered."

Tana's heart leaped. Ephraim was alive then! She'd been so worried all these months since he'd vanished. With every letter she sent home she asked if there was any news of him but always nothing, not even rumours.

"You've seen my brother?" Eirika asked eagerly, stepping closer to the prisoner. Seth, eyes narrowed and keeping a close watch on Cormag, moved closer to her, though with his crutches he made for a peculiar armed escort.

He nodded. "I was on leave in the capital and then I was sent on a sudden errand to Jehanna–to get me out of the way, I suppose. While I was there I glimpsed Prince Ephraim's group on the border."

"And General Glenn?" Seth said, his air sober.

"When I returned to Grado, Valter told me he'd been killed. He told me he saw it with his own eyes but couldn't do anything to stop it. He told me a very pretty lie and that same day I headed back to my aerodrome, got in my plane and flew it into Frelian-controlled air under a white flag."

For a moment there was complete silence. Tana could not look at his face, this man who had fled his country in search of revenge. She had lost friends because of him. All she wanted at that moment was to fly from the room and go back to her plane. She wanted more than anything to be in the sky, above all of this, and feel the frigid air on her face.

Seth was the first to speak. "But why would Valter do it? From what I've heard he's a national hero and a personal friend of Emperor Vigarde."

A bark of laughter from Cormag. "All isn't as it seems in Grado. You heard that the emperor is ill?" Seth and Eirika both nodded. "Decrees still officially come from his office, but it's Valter and Reeve who are behind every Imperial decree. The emperor is no more than a puppet. My brother had spoken out against them; it was what we talked about the last time I saw him."

When she spoke, Eirika's voice was barely more than a whisper. "What about Lyon?"

Cormag leaned back against the wall as if he were weary, letting out a long breath. "The prince has been working tirelessly on his research. They say he barely sleeps or eats anymore. Rumour has it he looks like a walking corpse."

Tana's eyes turned to Eirika's expression of distress. Of course, Erika had known Lyon before the war. She'd said he'd been kind, quiet, and dedicated to his studies. Tana remembered Eirika's adamant insistence that he would never have condoned the war.

"And this research?" Seth pressed. "What do you know about it?"

Cormag shrugged. "It's cloaked in secrecy. From what I've heard, the prince hopes it will lead to a cure for his father. Reeve on the other hand thinks it will have applications as a weapon, worse than what any of our artillery cannons can deliver." He raised his hands, palm outwards. "That's all I know of the matter."

Eirika nodded. "Thank you for telling us about this. And about Ephraim."

"I'll do anything in my power to bring down Valter," he replied, but as he did, his eyes drifted to Tana and hovered there. She scowled at him.

His brow furrowed as he stared at her. "Have we..._met_?"

He drew out that last word as if suggesting they had done more than simply meet. Tana bristled. She was certainly not one of his conquests. "You signed an autograph for me at an airshow in Frelia."

It took a moment, but then it registered and his eyes widened. She could see it in his face–he remembered. He remembered dinner in the palace with her family, how her brother had pestered him during most of the meal about the mechanics of flight, how she had managed to steal a moment alone with him to gush about his flying and how she so wanted to fly as well. Flight had seemed a grand adventure to her. And Cormag, to her eyes, had seemed heroic, roguishly handsome, daring. The perfect pilot.

She'd been such a little fool.

"Princess Tana," he said, bowing his head. "So you managed to win your wings after all."

She returned a curt nod. "Just in time to shoot down your fellows."

His jaw dropped but what he might of said, she never discovered, for the door flew open and they all spun to find a breathless corporal in the hall. "Captain, they need you in the air. Bombers sighted. Heading this way."

Tana's heart began to race. "Right. On my way." She turned to Seth and Eirika. "You need to get down to the cellars. Just in case."

She sprinted down the hall and took the stairs two at a time, all but flying out of the manor and across the airfield toward her fighter. The only reason for bombers to be in this area was to try to eliminate Cormag and his plane. They must have discovered somehow that he was being held here.

Her squadron was already preparing for takeoff as she finally reached the line of one-seaters, several already taxiing across the field to turn into the wind. With an easy hop, she was in the cockpit. The familiar but tedious takeoff drill followed as she flicked switches and pressurised the gas tank. When one of mechanics stationed next to the plane decided that the pistons had taken in the necessary gas, he nodded. "Contact, ma'am?"

"Contact," she repeated. She flicked the ignition switch. The mechanic gave the propeller a heave and then leaped out the way. The engine growled to life. It coughed a couple of times, as if it were clearing its throat before a speech, but then the pistons were hitting on the cylinders and the growl became a steady roar. Tana pulled her goggles over her eyes and then her hands settled on the joystick.

The mechanics were pushing against the plane to hold it back, straining against the machine which, like nearly all current models, lacked brakes. Tana throttled down until the engine was emitting a comforting purr. She signalled the mechanics and they began removing the chocks from beneath the wheels. They stepped away and she taxied across field, turning the plane into the wind. Opening the throttle wide, she bumped across the field until the tail rose off the ground and then, with a thrill that never lessened, she felt the plane rise into the air like a winged beast.

Slow circles around the aerodrome allowed her to gain height. The rest of her squadron was doing the same. When they'd reached the proper altitude, they would form up and prepare to take on the enemy fighters that would be escorting the bombers.

Tana glanced at her polished nickel instruments. Height, speed, angle. Everything read as normal as she climbed. It felt good to be in the air. These days, it was the only time she felt good. It was the only place she could forget her gnawing worry. Up here she felt alive, focussed. Her attention was centred on the plane's controls and the machine gun's trigger, where her squadmates were and where the enemy was. There was no time to fret about the war or Ephraim or Eirika. Her entire being was focussed on keeping herself aloft and sending her foes crashing to the earth. Purpose filled her when she was airborne like at no other time in her life.

As squadron leader, Syrene took point. The other nine planes formed ranks in a cluster, above and behind her. Tana shuddered as they gained altitude; the air was frigid in spite of her fur cap and long leather coat. Fur-lined gloves saved her fingers, but her chin and cheeks always had to thaw out when she returned to the ground.

They had been flying west for only a few minutes when Tana spotted dark flecks against the pale haze of the sky, slightly below them over a cloudbank. She could not make out the markings on their wings but even so she recognised the silhouettes, the very feel of them: they were enemy machines. And there, yes, in the centre of the group were the larger bombers. With wingspans of over seventy-five feet, more than twice that of the fighters, they were much like the wyverns emblazoned on their hides.

Including the bombers, there were only eight Imperial planes to their ten. Syrene signalled the others, and the squadron moved to engage the enemy. As a group, they descended upon the Imperials, diving like birds of prey.

Tana's plane roared as she dove towards one of the enemy planes. She was focussed on getting close enough to fire when something shot out of the clouds below, almost under the nose of her fighter–another Imperial plane! She shifted direction to give chase. From the corner of her eye she spotted several more of them darting out of the clouds and breaking off to attack the Frelian machines. Dammit! They'd been using the clouds as cover, hoping to catch her squadron off guard.

Her engines roared as she closed in on the enemy plane. He tried to circle away, but she followed his every move, gaining ground. He was in her sights now, maybe two hundred yards away. She opened fire. Nothing. Damn.

Before she could close again for a second attempt, she heard machine gun fire close by. Glancing over her shoulder to the left, she saw two more dogfights. And more planes a bit below and behind, judging by the stuttering sound of gunfire. The well-ordered formations of both groups had broken into a general melee. Her stomach knotted; where were the bombers?

She spotted one of her wingmates attempting to a evade a trio of machines half a mile away and turned to assist. Her plane tore across the distance in half a minute and she dove at the Imperials, breaking up their pursuit. One of them banked and dove. She followed. They circled each other, rising and falling in an aerial dance.

Machine gun fire rattled close enough to set her nerves jangling and she could see bullet holes in her plane's wings. But she'd had closer calls than this and no one stayed on her tail for long.

Tana pulled back on the stick until the nose of her plane pointed straight up, the classic first gesture of a loop. Her pursuer shot beneath her, but she did not finish the loop. Instead, the plane stood on its tail for a few moments before she dropped it back and then tipped the stick forward, diving at her would-be pursuer. She opened fire; she was too close now to miss. The Imperial machine plunged, gaining speed. She followed to make certain it would not recover from its dive. After a few moments she pulled up. When she glanced down she could see a flaming wreck on the earth below.

There was no sign of anyone else.

Scanning the skies for the enemy and the rest of her squadron, she spotted a great deal of movement to the west. The battle was getting closer to her aerodrome–that meant the bombers surely were as well. She made several slow circles to gain altitude and turned west.

Tana reached the fray in time to spot one of their planes dive like an eagle and open fire on a bomber–Syrene, Tana was almost certain. The bomber's nose dipped steeply and in a few seconds it was in freefall, flames trailing from its fuselage like a feathery tail. But where was the other bomber?

Sighting an enemy machine a short distance ahead, Tana angled her wings and pursued. There seemed to be planes everywhere; they moved in and out of her field of vision, sometimes like gnats for their distance, and other times so close she could see the head of the pilot poking out of the cockpit. But these things remained peripheral as she focussed all her attention on the wyvern-marked machine that zoomed in and out of her machine gun sights.

She was closing, almost close enough to open fire, when she realized she had someone on her tail again. Looking over her shoulder, she could see an Imperial plane, its fuselage painted the same gold as the wyvern that roared on its dark blue wings. Her heart lurched. She knew that plane; everyone knew that plane. Valter.

Her hands were already tilting the stick, circling around before she was in his sights. He'd crept up on her from a greater altitude, giving him the advantage of speed and angle. She circled and zigzagged, but every time she checked he was still there.

She saw no help on the way; the rest of her squadron was occupied. In spite of the frigid air, sweat beaded her brow beneath her aviator cap. The newest batch of Imperial planes was known for their manoeuverability. Achaeus was a steady old boy, but not as nimble as Valter's plane. Banking and circling led to nothing. He was closing. Valter was known for coming in close before he opened fire and few who ever came in his sights lived to tell the tale.

Heart thrumming, hands slick inside her gloves, Tana scanned the skies. There. The low cloudbank to the south. Banking to the left she opened the throttle full and tore towards the clouds. He followed. She didn't even need to look; she could almost feel his hot breath on her neck.

She swerved, trying to lose him in the clouds, but he was too close now. The rattle of machine gun fire sounded and she felt the plane shudder and then lurch to one side. She tugged on the stick to adjust, but something had been hit. Damn. She could think of only one way out of this now.

Titling the stick up, she dove.

The rush of air in her ears matched the roar of blood pounding in her temples. The earth hurtled towards as she dropped, the fields surrounding her aerodrome, stretched out like a mottled green cloak. She counted under her breath, estimating how long she could maintain the dive without losing control. A quick glance over her shoulder showed that she had gained some distance but it wasn't enough. Seconds ticked by. Now, it had to be now.

She tugged on the stick to level her dive. "Come one, Achaeus," Tana murmured. She wanted to pat the fuselage as she might a faithful hound or horse, but it took all her strength to pull back on the stick and bring the plane under control. And then she had it. The wings were level again. Something creaked at the back of the fuselage. There was nothing for it; she had to land. Wasting not a single second, she turned towards her aerodrome and aimed for a clear landing area. When she glanced over her shoulder, Valter was circling away. He'd driven her to the ground and would have to be satisfied with that for today.

The landing was a bit bumpy, but finally she coasted to a stop. Pulling off her goggles, she stared up at the sky. A few planes still circled the area, but the fighting had died down. Her chest clenched. Smoke...rising from the area of the aerodrome.

After an inspection of the damage, she decided she would have to walk back. Though she hated to leave her plane, she would need assistance to get it back to the hangar and it looked as though there might be more urgent matters to deal with at the aerodrome. The smell of smoke wafted to her nostrils and she felt heartsick all the time that she walked. The second bomber must have dropped its load.

When she finally reached it, she found the manor in shambles. Cormag's plane was intact, she realized with a shock, spotting it still whole under the canopy, but Cormag lay on a stretcher, blood smearing his face, a medic crouched next to him looking grim. Seth and Eirika, faces smudged with soot, watched in silence. The medic shook his head. Tana looked away.

You could fly as far as you liked and as high, but eventually you always had to come back down.

**The End  
**

* * *

**A/N: **Obscure fact of the day... Zeppelins bombed London during World War I.


End file.
